A Study Of The Features Of Music In Anthony Burgess's Musicalized Novels

A novel, as a rising genre of English literature, has attracted more and more people's attention. In its short history, many novelists have stuck to exploring the possibilities of this new genre. Especially since the late nineteenth century, many of them have made their contributions to this field. Anthony Burgess is among them. Being a musician, he composed his known musical works. Being a novelist, he completed over thirty novels. Being a polymath, he produced many poems, essays, film scripts, etc, and caught the world's attention. The publication of his works caused an enormous sensation among the readers as well as the critics. Researches concerning him and his works have been carried on. However, one of his conspicuous aspects, as a musician who later was engaged in writing, has not been fully recognized. He exhibited his flair for endowing the novels with musical qualities. When the study comes to the musicality in his novels, there are only a few articles and sparse monographs. The researches are far from satisfactory, though some intriguing results have been achieved. Against such a background, the present study is significant in three aspects: firstly, it helps recognize the means by which Burgess injected musical elements into the fiction; secondly, it helps reconsider the relationship between the fiction and music; finally, it eventually helps shed some light on the potentiality of the future of the novel.On the basis of the previous studies and critical researches, this paper concentrates on the means of musical elements assimilated into Burgess's novels. It explicates the underlying musical forms that influence the general structure of his musicalized novels, gives a detailed analysis of hidden tempi in one of his works with the help of narratological methods, then analyzes the functions of contents concerning music in his novels, and finally touches on other musical factors influencing the appearances of his novels.This paper is composed of six chapters: a general introduction, four main-body parts and a conclusion. The first chapter is an introduction. Firstly, it introduces foreign critics'judgments on Anthony Burgess and Burgess's original intentions in imbuing novels with the properties of music. Secondly, it presents the theoretical background of musicality in the novels, the historical origin and the development of musicalized novels, and then focuses on Anthony Burgess and his means of attaining musical elements in his novels. Thirdly, it points out the significance of this study. Lastly, the author looks back on the current literature on this research both at home and abroad. With the deficiencies of the previous studies brought to light, the focus of this paper is provided.Chapter Two takes mainly the summaries of Anthony Burgess'three novels as the starting point and attempts to draw upon A Clockwork Orange as an example to demonstrate the invisible power of musical forms influencing Burgess's novels. Regular sonata form contains four sections which have their own rules. Learning from this musical form, Burgess aped the rough framework in A Clockwork Orange,and made a delicate pastiche in Tremor of Intent. On the basis of one musical form, he wonderfully produced two narrative structures. Dissatisfied at exploring the possibility of one musical form, he broadened his provenance of writing. In Napoleon Symphony, he took the musical structure of Beethoven's Third Symphony Eroica as the model of his writing. The research made by David McNeil on this project is provided briefly.Chapter Three deals with the tempi in Burgess's musicalized novels. The concept tempo is defined in terms of musicology. Then it points out the feasibility of injecting the tempo from music into the novels. The analysis takes tempi in A Clockwork Orange as an example. This chapter provides the reader's responses to speeds of narrative in the novel. In order to make an analysis as scientific as possible, kernels are distinguished from satellites. In each part, the quantities of kernels are under investigation. The densities of satellites are also investigated. When the pages and span of time in each part and chapter are taken into consideration, the densities of events in each chapter and part reveal the tempi of the book. The results, when compared with the reader's responses and senses, are proved to be congruent. With the help of the tempi, Burgess made his novels different from those by other novelists. Chapter Four proceeds to argue that contents concerning music function in his writing. They can be used to create the atmospheres fitting the text, or to delineate the characters. Different from other novelist probing in this domain, Burgess augmented the role contents concerning music played. Contents concerning music structurally echo in A Clockwork Orange. Burgess's virtuosity of writing the novels with the senses of a musician is also uncovered.Chapter Five goes on to say that the traces of other musical factors could be observed in Burgess's works. Repetition, being a means to unify relation of the score, includes leitmotiv and repetition of paragraphs. When injected into the novels, they can help build up the structures of his novels, or effect a change of the appearances and aesthetic forms of the novels. With regard to rhythm and harmony, this paper points out that as two principles regulating music, they are transformed into rhythm and rhyme in the domain of poetry. Burgess borrowed them, and endowed parts of his novels with rhythmic beauty and harmony.Chapter Six summarizes the main results of this paper, namely, Burgess borrowed musical elements from the perspectives of musical forms, of tempi, of contents concerning music, of repetition, and of rhythm and rhyme and other musical factors. He brings some novelty to the novels, revealing the potential of the novels. It concludes that Burgess's literary practice to imbue the novel with musicality prophesies one tendency for the novelists to strive for.